it's all about marketing

I'd like to think I would have the same 'when life hands you lemons...make lemonade' attitude as this lady. I'm sure the insurance money helped...but CAPITALIZING on the tragic...that's where I hope I'd be able to respond in kind.

It really highlights the human condition of wanting to be 'in the club'. Clearly, we all have different 'clubs' we'd like to be a part of...but ordering something just because of a cool or unusual name (probably at an inflated price)?

Brilliant marketing. Which, by the way, is one of a two-part axiom under which I think the vast majority of the word, aware or not, operates. (We'll get to the second part another time.)

It's all about marketing. The first time I realized this truth I was shopping in that great retail mecca known as Target. I needed tape. Just enough tape to go with the wrapping paper and last-minute birthday present I was also buying on my way to the birthday party (don't judge...you've done it too).

As I stood in the office supplies aisle, I was overwhelmed with choices. Permanent tape. Temporary tape. Shiny tape. Invisible tape. This width. That width. Scotch brand tape. Target brand tape (probably made by 3M - who makes Scotch brand, sold at a lower cost but still going to 3M's bottom line revenue). And then...something caught my eye. It was a Scotch brand tape, but it was bound in a curvy, shiny, fluorescent green tape dispenser...a FAR CRY from the clunky, angular, plain 'standard issue' dispenser. I was sold. I grabbed it (and no, I have no idea if it was permanent or temporary, shiny or invisible) and was on my way. Give me a break, I was in a hurry to wrap the aforementioned last-minute gift and make a fashionably late appearance to the birthday party. As I stood in line at the register, it hit me.

Target brand tape: $0.69
Average price of Scotch brand tape: $0.99
Shiny green dispenser Scotch tape: $1.39

I was SUCKERED by the marketing machine. Me! A reasonably intelligent and self-aware consumer. And I bought it anyway...I mean, what's a measly $0.40 to me? Answer: not much. What's a measly $0.40 to 3M's bottom line? Answer: at thousands of units sold...it's BIG MONEY. Brilliant.

Now...allow me to connect the dots of my fragmented psyche. Why did I buy the fancy green dispenser tape? Because I thought it was cool, and I want to be "in the club" (consciously or not). Just like the people ordering the "elephant set" at the "Restaurant Where Elephants Have Been."

This idea is at the heart of all great marketing. But the brilliant ones...they make you fall for it without realizing it. Or, they make it such that, even if you do realize it, you reward them by buying it anyway.

Consider Starbucks.

Author's note: the Target incident happened way too long ago for me to remember the actual prices of the various tape products, but for the sake of illustration, allow me to declare that they are reasonably accurate, comparatively speaking.